William Walker O'Connell

December 5, 2009

11:35 pm

7 pounds, 8 ounces

20 inches

We are so thankful for the safe arrival of our precious William - and still can't believe he came 10 days early! He decided to make his entrance a little more exciting than his brothers - is this an indication of what's to come?
So here's the story - I started to fill a little "different" last Thursday, which turned into regular contractions on Friday evening. The contractions were getting stronger and were consistently 3-4 minutes apart for over an hour, so we called the doctor and headed to Sibley. We were checked in by 2am - contractions continued to pick up, my water broke on my own at 3. Contractions started getting more intense about 8am, I was 4.5 cm dilated, so asked for the epidural around 10. Then my labor started stalling, the epidural guy arrived, I went ahead a got the epidural since that has helped speed my last 2 labors along (and wanted it in case we needed petocin). To make a long story (and day) short, nothing was happening all day (even though it looked like I was having contractions), so finally they started me on petocin at 7pm. After 2 hours on a good level of petocin (and really strong contractions), baby wasn't moving down, and I was bleeding a bit too much (his heart rate was great though). They gave me 1 more hour to see if I'd progress, and nothing happened, so decided he had to be stuck on something and did a c-section. My doctor was never was able to figure out why he wouldn't drop - said I was quite the talk of labor and delivery, and that I am a complete mystery (since my last 2 labors were so fast and smooth). Anyway, the c-section went extremely well, and Baby Will has been a champ. So far he's extremely healthy..and we're very smitten :).
We head home from the hospital tomorrow, and are very excited to introduce Will to his big brothers. The boys haven't been able to visit the hospital - no one under the age of 18 is allowed to visit for the duration of this flu season. This has been very sad for momma, but I HAVE really enjoyed this special alone time with Will. :) We'll post pics of the family reunion soon!